English – The language of progress?

India is losing business due to loyalty to English Language. We can’t do business with the French or Germans, Spanish or the Arabs. Swahili and Bantu, the Chinese and Japanese are out of bounds to us.

Mr. Feisal Ali (feisal.ali@gmail.com) contributed photograhs (sic) – Khwaja Mohammed Azam, a member of the Indian National Congress based in Ludhiana; friend of Jawaharlal Nehru; picture taken in 1947 when Nehru visited Ludhiana and stayed at Khwaja Mohammed Azam’s residence. (Pic courtesy – oldindianphotos.blogspot.com.). Click for larger picture.

n 15th August 1947, when Nehru made his ‘Tryst with destiny’ speech, he made a choice for India favoring English.

Status quo is not choice

At that time, an Indian economy in tatters and technologically stagnant, it was necessary choice.

To stay with the choice, 70 years later, is an expensive choice based on legacy and ease.

For instance, India’s recent success with the software industry, has been hobbled due to over-reliance on English language.

In the last 60 years, the issue of English language has acquired a tone of chauvinism, a smell of regionalism and parochialism. Over the last 24 months, 2ndlook has been making out a case against English language. Not on chauvinistic appeal but rooted in economic logic, on political advantage, on long-term benefit. To move forward, not on legacy, but by choice.

It was rather good to see this post linked below, which echoed the 2ndlook logic partly. Where this post missed out was how India software success also failed due to English language!

All the same, knowledge of English is probably an over-rated virtue. As the crisis over the Commonwealth Games has demonstrated, it cannot act as a guarantor of execution ability, efficiency or even honesty. Increasingly, it is becoming an alibi for the lack of enablers within the Indian system for talent to rise, irrespective of linguistic provenance and patronage. India makes much of the fact that its English-speaking population base has been turned to profitable use in the vast information technology (IT) and back office industry. In many ways, IT defines the dynamic new India. But surely independent India’s genius must go beyond leveraging a colonial heritage. (via Kanika Datta: The language of progress).

The Elite is using tax-payer money to create passports for their families to ‘escape’ to the English-speaking West. | Jerry Holbert cartoon on Monday, February 9, 2009; image source & courtesy – townhall.com

What is India missing out on …

India’s biggest economic success in the last 20 years has been the maturing of the software industry. That has also been its biggest failure.

Between 70%-80% of Indian software business comes from two countries – USA and UK. English speaking countries – both of them. Total software business to these two countries is about US$35-40 billion – out of total Indian software exports of US$50 billion. UK alone contributes nearly 60% of total EU software business to India.

India is losing business opportunities due to India’s loyalty to The Great British Gift To India – English Language. We can’t do business with the French or Germans, Spanish or the Arabic speaking world. The Chinese and Japanese are out of bounds to us – as are the Swahili and the Bantu.

English – The language of progress? Cartoon published in Times Of India on 14th December 1958 – Fifty years earlier. Cartoon by RK Laxman; republished in 2008.

In the past few years …

Like an earlier post pointed out, the lack of language skills has stopped Indians from exploiting the Japanese opportunity. This includes the software business. Same story in Europe also – major opportunities overlooked and ignored. RBI in the meanwhile has been complaining how India’s own IT players have been pretty useless in building a software platform for financial inclusion of India’s poor in the formal economic sector.

This is also true of other business opportunities also. Our ‘success’ with English blinds us to the bigger and larger opportunities that stare at us. And the first thing that we need to do is to diversify our language basket. But with our bankruptcy of ideas on restructuring Indian education system or the vested interest banging begging bowls in front of the Indian tax payer!

India missed out on Japanese investments, technology and business – due to a well-cultivated tunnel vision about English language (amongst many other things). Indian loyalty to English language exceeds the loyalty of the British themselves to their language – and we refuse to see how this affects us.

Is it due to the apparent Indian decision to tie its future to the sinking ship of the Anglo Saxon Bloc?

The Indian ‘elephant’ bows to English language, legacy and red-tape. | Cartoon by David Simonds; courtesy – guardian.co.uk, Sunday 25 July 2010 00.06 BST.

What India needs …

India should set up 7 specialized universities. One for Chinese and Japanese studies. Another university needs to focus on Franco-German language skills. A third must devote itself to creating a centre of excellence in Swahili and Bantu. A fourth must address the Spanish and Portuguese language markets. The fifth must address the SE Asian languages of Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, etc. A sixth university must address the Russian and Slavic languages. Last and definitely, not the least, the seventh university must create a core of qualified and skilled people using Persian and Arabic languages.

This is, of course, apart from Indian language universities.

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Endgame for Manmohan Singh?

(Montage courtesy - Sunday Magazine of Faking News dated 30 May 2010.). Click for larger image.

Tom-tom drums

In the deep jungles of Indian politics, tom-tom drums are beating. Some people who know how to read these drum-beats are saying that the message reads “Rahul baba is coming … Rahul baba is coming …”

Will Indira Gandhi inspire Rahul Gandhi

It is some 15 months of UPA-II. Will it be like the 1971 election of Indira Gandhi. Leading a lame-duck, Government for two years, after a flurry of populist tokens, like abolition of privy purses, bank nationalisation, Indira Gandhi called for ‘garibi hatao’ and an election.

Will we see an ouster of Manmohan, installation of Rahul Gandhi as PM, another flurry of populist tokens – and an election in 12-18 months.

Going by personal experience, the few 2ndlook posts in the last 3 months, on Rahul Gandhi have had unusual traffic. Reader interest has been higher than what the content would justify.

Listening posts

A report in The Times Of India reads

our economist PM’s lack of leadership gets manifested best in his absolute abdication of responsibility on issues concerning the country’s economy … foodgrains continue to rot for want of storage space … even as Naxals continue to kill our forces at will … the home minister’s response suggests it to be a ‘law and order’ problem, Digvijay Singh thinks otherwise … as the killing spree continues, the government’s absentee railway minister addresses a massive rally at Lalgarh with Maoist support and even supports an investigation into the death of a Naxal commander.

Cartoon date - Sep 06, 2010; Cartoon by - Sandeep Adhwaryu; cartoon courtesy - outlook.com. Click for larger image.

Pranab Mukherjee disapproves of Mamata Banerjee’s antics. But soon the Congress’s own heir apparent takes a dangerous left turn. Addressing a massive tribal rally alongside a suspected Naxal leader, Rahul Gandhi talks of being a soldier of the tribals in Delhi … What is most unbecoming of the ‘honest’ Singh is his constantly looking the other way on issues involving gross corruption. No wonder then that telecom minister A Raja and CWG chairman Suresh Kalmadi have seemed to carry on their reported exploits with impunity.

India deserves a more ‘in-control’ PM … what makes the PM-in-waiting, Rahul, choose to remain ‘shielded’ perpetually? Has he done a reality check and concluded that he is not prepared for the job? Is he worried that he might face the same flak when his opportunity comes? What is equally surprising is that our ‘PM-designate’ is just as invisible on almost all important issues. (via No Nightwatchman’s Innings – The Times of India; parts excised for brevity.).

Is Rahul trying out his grand-mother's strategy? (Cartoonist - RK Laxman; Cartoon courtesy - outlook.com) Click for larger image.

National Advisory Council (NAC) takes over

A web-zine, MeriNews in a recent analysis points out

The SIX-year old trusted political equation between Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh is said to be under pressure. Since the revival of National Advisory Council (NAC), headed by Sonia Gandhi …

All these six years, perfect understanding was maintained among these two power centers. While Sonia Gandhi looking after political issues of Congress-led UPA Government; Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh was given free hand with regard to the affairs of the government. But the growing interest shown by Sonia Gandhi in the governance seems to be widening the gap between the two political titans.

At this juncture, the revival of NAC is seen as Sonia Gandhi’s efforts to take control over the administration on her own to pave way for the coronation of her son Rahul Gandhi as Prime Minister. …

Manmohan Singh  is taking all due care avoiding the media focus on himself. He has hardly given any full-length interview for any news paper or news channel. He is also not happy with the attitude of some ministers, who did not cooperate with him … only Home Minister P. Chidambaram interacts with the Prime Minister on a regular basis on all major policy issues. While all other ministers are trying to show that they are more loyal to `madam’ than the prime minister.

Manmohan Singh was upset when AICC General Secretary Digvijay Singh had written an article questioning Chidambaram’s anti-Maoists policy at a time when the government was facing crisis following 76 CRPF jawans massacre in Chhattiasgarh. Whether Rahul Gandhi will be allowed to lead the nation or some intermediate arrangement will be preferred, is yet to be seen. (via Has Sonia Gandhi-Manmohan Singh equation as a team ended?).

It wasn't easy then ... (Published on - Jul 14, 2010; cartoon by - Sandeep Adhwaryu; cartoon courtesy - outlook.com.). Click for larger image.

Insider knows

A BJP MP, Chandan Mitra, writing for The Pioneer, paints a similar picture. Some edited (for brevity) sections are reproduced below.

What happened in the Rajya Sabha on August 31, last day of the Monsoon Session … was probably the most incredible example of a Government under siege … from within. The … next day, the Parliamentary Affairs Minister sought to drape Congress MP Keshava Rao’s rebellion against … Kapil Sibal with the cloak of “inner-party democracy” reveals the … bewilderment. Later the same evening, … P Chidambaram and Digvijay Singh were back in the ring …this time over the term ‘saffron terror’. Was it mere coincidence that two efficient … Ministers — Mr Chidambaram and Mr Sibal — bore the brunt of Congress MPs’ wrath? Some … believe that … Mr Keshava Rao’s … access to 10 Janpath, the rebellion must have been staged … (knowing) that no consequences would follow.

leaders have begun jockeying for the post-Manmohan era. With Rahul Gandhi’s mounting visibility, carefully calibrated by sections of the media, Congress know it is a matter of time before the heir-apparent takes direct charge.

the Prime Minister sat through all five hours of the Nuclear Liability Bill debate in the Rajya Sabha. Congress MPs later complained they couldn’t even take coffee breaks because it would have been improper to gad off while he sat on impassively. From this unusual action it has been deduced by many that Mr Manmohan Singh is in the final stage of repaying his debt to Washington on the nuclear issue.

So now that the nuclear deal process is complete, Mr Manmohan Singh may prefer to walk into the sunset once US President Barack Obama’s visit happens in early November.

Proponents believe that 2011 or latest 2012 will be the year of transition … a political crisis may be deliberately stirred so that a fresh election has to be called to legitimise Mr Rahul Gandhi’s ascendancy since his mother believes electoral endorsement is what’s kept the dynasty going. Congress strategists have calculated that if an election is held within the next 12 to 18 months, with Mr Rahul Gandhi projected as Prime Minister, the party will win a majority on its own. …

some seniors in the party are already positioning themselves for such an eventuality — Mr Digvijay Singh for one [.] has been consistently making jholawallah-type noises … significantly, he has targeted Mr Chidambaram who is clearly doing his best to uphold the dignity and power of the Indian state. … Rahul is building a jholawallah team around himself, some inherited from his mother’s National Advisory Council, which now acts as a super-Cabinet, and the rest drawn from from across the globe, potential British Labour Party leader David Miliband included. I would rather have Mr Rahul Gandhi take over right now than permit his ambitious cohorts to inject chaos and disorder in governance so that they can herald the Crown Prince’s arrival into South Block as the knight in shining armour destined to ‘rescue’ India from drift. Who knows, maybe Ms Sonia Gandhi will time her ‘voluntary retirement’ to coincide with that so daughter Priyanka begins a long stint as Congress president! [Significant caveats and qualifications by the author excised for brevity. Read original, linked at the beginning and here to verify the credibility and degree of certainty of the analysis].

Remember! Congress has won just 3 elections in the last 40 years. (Cartoon By Sandeep Adhwaryu; courtesy - outlook.com; publication date - Jun 28, 2010.). Click for larger image.

Which way the wind blows

The wide- coverage of Rahul Gandhi’s support  to Omar Abdullah by the media was indicative of the way political winds are blowing. Did Omar Abdullah with nearly 12-15 years of experience in governance need Rahul Gandhi’s certification? The shrill attacks on the Government using Commonwealth Games is another indicator. Will the Ayodhya judgement by the Allahabad High Court be used as a trigger for displacing Manmohan Singh?

Time will surely tell. In the meantime, Rahul Gandhi would do well to remember that the Congress has really won just three election out of ten in the last 40 years. No doubt, the Indian Voter exudes warmth towards Rahul Gandhi.

To assume that this warmth will translate into votes is immature.

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Commonwealth Games – Politics of Collusion

Why should only the Congress misuse CBI - let all parties misuse the CBI! (Cartoon by Kirtish Bhatt).

In the beginning

The Commonwealth Games (CWG) proves the point that democracy breeds a collusive polity. In the beginning was the BJP.

1. Why did Vajpayee Government bid for CWG? It defies all common sense. The Commonwealth is an idea that is long dead – and definitely irrelevant.

2. If it was persuaded by the Anglo-Saxon Bloc, what is the quid-pro-quo? What did India get from CWG? This Commonwealth benefits the British! Let them host it, pay for it, support it and ‘persuade’ us to attend.

3. Yesterday, Times Now TV debate tells that the Vajpayee Government paid out some thousands of dollars for each vote to ‘win’ the right to ‘host’ these games? Delhi beat Hamilton, New Zealand for this ‘privilege’?

Sorrier tale, I have not heard in many years. Even if the Vajpayee Govt paid nothing for this ‘privilege’?

We’ll walk hand in hand …

Coming to Kawngressis: –

1. If the Kawngress had an iota of honesty, they should have protested this bid in the first place. When the BJP /NDA was in power.

2. Having got this fait accompli, the Kawngress should have been determined to do this at least cost, minimum shosha, tamasha – like Mani Shanker Iyer has proposed.

3. They should have put some good, honest bureaucrats on the job to achieve point no.2. Not allowed the likes of Mike Fennell and Mike Hooper to abuse Indian people, hospitality – and spend lakhs on them every month for this privilege. Rs.6.0 crore spent on them in the last few years.

A job so badly botched up, I have not seen in the last many years. Any way you look at it, the CWG is a case of collusive polity. And no one, but no one, comes out of this clean or decent. Not in my books at least.

Corruption has got more coverage - drowning out the other related issues. (Cartoon by by IRFAN; courtesy - cartoonistirfan.blogspot.com.).

Craving approval – without actions and achievements

This bit about promoting sports is another bad idea. Why is the State getting involved in the sports business. If it has to get involved, it must promote Indian sports.

Why is India building this huge infrastructure to promote Western sports. Why do we want to prove to the world that we can be good at Western sports. Like a columnist put it

Burning money on a gala sporting event does not make us a super-power

Anyway, what has sports got to do with nationhood. This nation-competition-sports is one bad idea, which must be killed.

Try as hard as anyone may, I just cannot be moved by this idea. No Indian can put up a good show of something as dishonest as CWG. I am not surprised that CWG is going to be a disaster! It will take a Great Disbeliever in the idea of India, to put up a good CWG.

Great Indian shows

Is it that Indians cannot put up a good show?

About ten years ago, India put up a great show. Unrivaled in the last 100 years, at least, by any country. It was called Y2K.

The Western world was at the cusp of an epic disaster – Y2K. Computer systems had used two-digit number to denote years. In 20th century, this was efficient use of computing power when raw computing power itself was expensive. Coming to the end of 20th century, when the number would go from 1999 to 2000, it was expected the logic used by computers would crash.

Posted by Shreyas Navare on Friday, August 6, 2010 at 10.35 pm (Courtesy - blogs.hindustantimes.com.). Click for larger image.

The West needed to rewrite the entire code for their industrial systems. And they had no spare programming capacity to do it. Enter India. In a matter of 7 years, desi, backward Indians obtained contracts, understood programming designs, deciphered the code, redesigned the new system, coded and tested their new systems, trained users and handed over fully working systems on D-date. It is 10 years now. These Indian systems continue to run the Western world.

Most recently, the corrupt and scam-tainted Satyam put up a faultless show at South Africa Football World Cup.

What has money got to do

Let us be clear – corruption has nothing to do with this fiasco. A highly corrupt China put up a great show at Beijing Olympics.

The CWG problem goes deeper. Even if the CWG were to go off smoothly,  I can’t be proud of this. Even if, this corruption allegations were poppycock! I have no answer to a simple question? Why are we doing the CWG? And there is no good answer to this question.

Write to me. If you have one reason. Just one, honest reason. Why should we host and promote this hoax.

Can you really motivate someone to do a good job on Commonwealth Games? I wonder ...

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Rahul Gandhi on terrorism

Self defence is an idea whose time has come. Ideas matter. Prejudices dont! (Cartoonist – Lisa Benson; Cartoon Courtesy – cartoonistgroup.com.).

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday had a surprise suggestion of empowering villagers to fight terrorism.

“I am confident that this country can take on terrorism. Defeating it is no problem. If we empower those people in villages, we can sit back, relax and we will destroy terrorism in 15 minutes,” Gandhi told a press conference here. (via Empower villagers and defeat terrorism in 15 minutes: Rahul).

Are we making terrorism into a slogan

Twitter, Facebook, private emails are all buzzing about the latest statement by Rahul Gandhi on terrorism. Mostly critical. With bits like ‘we can sit back, relax’, Rahul partly deserves ridicule. But the core of his statement is a rare piece of sense.

Strangely, when Rahul Gandhi does make his rare sensible statement, unthinking reaction is to reject. Terrorism is a case where a ‘disarmed’ population has been made dependent  on the State for defence at even the local level. Would the attackers of Mumbai’s Taj Hotel have dared if they had known that many of the people were armed and liable to fire back?

To all Rahul baiters

This is one smart thing he has said. What if it his first good idea! In fact the idea is so good that no government would dare to do such a thing! Including Rahul Gandhi himself, if he were to come the Prime Minister tomorrow.

Hitler car to be used for Nepal palace tourists

Hitler in his own Mercedes Benz Photograph by - Archive photo, Popperfoto/Getty Images; Courtesy - Montreal Gazzette

A car said to have been a gift from Adolf Hitler to a Nepalese king will be repaired and used to drive visitors around the grounds of a palace museum, a government official said on Thursday.

The 1939 Mercedes-Benz was presented by the Nazi leader to King Tribhuvan, grandfather of Nepal’s last King Gyanendra, deposed two years ago. (via Hitler car to be used for Nepal palace tourists).

Ernst Schäfer, leader of the Nazi expedition to Tibet in 1938. (Picture courtesy - channel4.com)

German activities in Indian border areas

Why would Hitler send a car as a gift to the King of Nepal?

Behind that is an interesting history of manoeuvrings by European powers in Asia. The Tibetan kingdom, sought to counter-balance the British and the Chinese power, by increasing Japanese-German presence. Result – German activity in the Nepal, Sikkim and Tibet region was significant in the 1920-1940 period.

Dr.R.Wilhelm Filchner was an early German traveller in Tibet, China and North West India in 1903-195. Filchener’s second expedition, in 1924 took longer, covered greater distances with more complications. Albert Von Le Coq’s (the German version of Auriel Stein) book in 1928 covered North-West India, Tiber, North-East China, Eastern Iran region. Paul Dahlke, set up the Buddhistisches Haus at Berlin in 1924.

Religion and Occult

There is a certain amount of mysticism and occult elements also. Theodore Illion (German writer of a strange traveller’s account titled Darkness Over Tibet) wrote of mystics in underground cities, who would help the Aryans to conquer and rule the world. The names of Friedrick Krohn and Karl Haushofer are also related to this genre.

In 1920, Friedrick Krohn, a member of the Thule Society, suggested the Hakenkreutz, a symbol used by the Thule Society, to Adolf Hitler for the nascent Nazi Party. An unlikely theory by French researchers Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier that it was Karl Haushofer (a Tibeto-phile from Germany), close to Rudolf Hess and also knew Hitler, who contributed to the idea of Hakenkreuz, the Nazi swastika. The Hakenkreuz was being used by the Nazi Party before Hitler met Haushofer.

Tibetan moves

It is known that Hitler sent his scientific advisors for studies to Tibet (via Sikkim). These were anthropological studies and culture studies. During Hitler’s short reign, a German expedition went to Tibet (at Tibet’s invitation), led by Ernst Schäfer, included Bruno Berger, H.A. Lettow, (from the Himmler’s SS group), Heinrich Harrer’s travels during WWII have become famous with Seven Years in Tibet film with Brad Pitt.

Hitler’s interest in Nepal, Tibet and Sikkim underscored the importance of the British possession of India in world affairs at that time.

And not Hitler’s occult, religious and racial beliefs.

Hitler , the Nazi Swatstikasent his scientific advisors to get this technology from Tibet (via Sikkim).

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Flap over Indian Electronic Voting Machines

The Great Indian Election Tamasha (Cartoon by Paresh Nath, Published by The Khaleej Times, UAE, Cartoon Courtesy - caglecartoons.com).

All’s well …

Hari K. Prasad, the techie who was pushing the case for secure Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), earlier arrested, has now been released on bail.

Fears of the Vindictive State seems to have been misplaced. Instead, we had a judge who echoed, pretty much what 2ndlook said. The judge said,

if the machine was possessed by the accused for demonstrating only that it could be tampered with, then the accused committed no offence. On the contrary, he has done a great service to the democracy,” the Judge said in the bail order.

Tathastu!

How can the land of snakes and elephants get the latest technology seems to be the thrust of these arguments? (Cartoon by Patrick Corrigan; Published by The Toronto Star; Cartoon Courtesy - caglecartoons.com.).

If developed countries have rejected EVMs …

One worrisome argument states that since many ‘advanced’ countries rejected EVMs, India too must reject the same.

The question seems to be, “Do you think the Indian Election Commission is better than the US Federal Election Commission?” Since, election authorities in Netherlands and Germany have rejected EVMs, another favorite question is “Are you saying that the Government of Netherlands and Germany are wrong?” Even ‘advanced’ countries don’t have EVMs.

Why should India have it.

Paralysis by analysis

Paper based systems are also prone to frauds. Like ‘oldsters’ in the Indian electoral scene will point put. Whatever technology is used, elements of fraud are likely to rear their heads. A recent post in The Economic Times recounts

a story to illustrate how there have always been allegations against electoral systems. “Balraj Madhok (former politician and co-founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh) once alleged that Indira Gandhi had colluded with the Russians and imported a special election ink. Wherever it is marked in the ballot paper, the ink would disappear and reappear against the Congress symbol. This is like that,” he says.

If the above story is factual, it would mean, a combination of two inks. A disappearing ink that would fade away a few days after being used on the ballot paper. The second ink would have to be an ‘invisible’ ink, that is embedded in the ballot paper at the printing press itself. This ‘invisible ink would make its appearance a few days or weeks after the ballots are printed. Do such inks exist?

I haven’t the foggiest notion.

A new day … a new way

Making the system work, after the decision is made is a good thing. Paralysing a system with ‘doubts’ instead of ‘karma’ is a bad idea. If EVMs need improvement, let us do it.

For tomorrow, I would propose a paper based system with central data-base and a printer-server with printers in every polling booth. These printers will print a ballot-paper on demand, for that booth, with date-time-location-serial number-election supervisor-election observers ID stamp, that will have better security than EVM or the ‘current’ old printing machines.

The story so far …

By December, the movement had a book of its own, written by Rao, the psephologist, and a growing number of supporters. One of them, Satya Dosapati, a technician from AP living in the US, connected the movement with Rop Gonggrijp and Alex Halderman. Gonggrijp is a Dutch activist who was part of the team that persuaded his country to scrap electronic voting. Halderman holds a PhD in computer science from Princeton University and is currently an assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan. When Prasad eventually got hold of a machine, Gonggrijp and Halderman worked with him to demonstrate two ways in which a potential hacker could manipulate the machine.

Alerted, the EC asked officials to check for bluetooth devices in EVMs during the first step in securing a machine for an election. Engineers from the manufacturing companies are also now required to certify that all components are original and have not been tampered with. They also have to ensure the absence of any external component. It’s unclear though if all the components in 1.3 million machines can be rigorously tested and cleared by engineers before every election.(via ET Special: Can the Electronic Voting Machine be manipulated? – Page3 – The Economic Times).

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How Tony Judt died and became Saint!

St.Tony Judt - The media and academia in cahoots with the State (Cartoon by Pavel Constantin, Romania; Cartoon Courtesy - caglecartoons.com).

The beatification of Saint Judt

The last 30-45 days has seen a surge on obits, reviews and tributes to Tony Judt.

Tony who? Exactly. An unknown writer till a few months ago, has suddenly become famous in his death. Media (at least in India) has gone overboard. But when Marathi media started on Tony Judt, it was high noon. The straw on the camel’s back.

OK, guilty of misrepresentation. Not the camel’ back! It was my back.

There  seems  an effort at beatification of Tony Judt. In the modern era, temporal authorities, award a quick Nobel Prize, pin a Congressional Medal of Honor – and the process of ‘secular’ sainthood is completed. Media aids by marching to the drumbeat of the State. These ‘secular’ sainthoods by the ‘modern-secular-liberal-progressive-democratic’ establishment are not meant to be enduring or important. They , the latter-day, disposable, ‘secular’ saints, serve a utilitarian purpose to their masters – the State.

Tony Judt is no exception.

How come 'modern' Western identities are not included by Tony Judt in his 'problem' list? (Cartoon By - Angel Boligan, Courtesy - Cagle Cartoons)

From the safety of a university cloister

By being overtly anti-Israel, Tony Judt, gets an inside track into the Islamic mind – to start his ideas of ‘identity’.

A self-confessed, Social Democrat (but that is not ‘identity’) Tony Judt is the type who speaks from the comfort of a winning side.

We know enough of ideological and political movements to be wary of exclusive solidarity in all its forms. One should keep one’s distance not only from the obviously unappealing “-isms”—fascism, jingoism, chauvinism—but also from the more seductive variety: communism, to be sure, but nationalism and Zionism too. And then there is national pride: more than two centuries after Samuel Johnson first made the point, patriotism—as anyone who passed the last decade in America can testify—is still the last refuge of the scoundrel. (via Edge People | The New York Review of Books).

As fortunes shifted and wavered, Tony Judt’s recounts how his family moved from one declining economy to another growing economy. From Eastern Europe, vaguely in a region near Russia, to Antwerp in Belgium thereon to Britain and finally to the USA. He finds

over the years these fierce unconditional loyalties—to a country, a God, an idea, or a man—have come to terrify me. The thin veneer of civilization rests upon what may well be an illusory faith in our common humanity.

The West has systematically deformed Islamic identity - after dismantling the Ottoman Empire. (Cartoonist - Paresh Nath, Published by - The National Herald, India)

To people like Tony Judt, identity is a matter of convenience. And they rightly, recommend that people must have no identity – and by extension, no loyalty. Fly flags of convenience. May the highest bidder win.

I wonder where Judt’s family was, when the Belgians were flogging the Congolese.

Sainthood by the Vatican

The ‘modern’ State and the media of the Free World have it easy when it comes to cannonising people like Tony Judt!

The Catholic Church has a rather exacting process, stretching over a few years, at the very least. The Catholic Church even appoints a Devil’s Advocate – someone who tries to find reasons why the candidate should NOT be declared a saint.

This process has sometimes taken decades too. After multiple processes and steps, a committee. the Congregation for the Causes of Saints decides on these issues. With the kind of rigour that the Vatican process follows, Saints have ‘public memory’ life span extending to centuries.

The perversion of the Islamic world started with the break up of the Ottoman Empire (Cartoon By - Emad Hajjaj, Jordan; Cartoon Courtesy - caglecartoons.com)

Coming to Saint Judt

Today when the West is paying the price for creating a misshapen Islamic identity, people like Judt thinly speak out against identity – an Islamic identity. Or when the West faces a challenge from Asia, China and India, it pays to talk of less identity.

This idea of less identity would not be such a bad idea – if you have so little of identity, to start with!

The Do-Gooder Industry in India

The Church and pedophiles go back a long time

 

Mowitha attended the same therapeutic project in India where Maria Mosterd went to get away from her loverboy. There are photos on the table of her dressed in a sari, a beaming girl with curly hair and freckles. For a time, after she had returned to the Netherlands, it seemed as if she were coming to her senses and wanted to lead a normal life. But then she slid back into prostitution, and her mother felt that her only option was to send her to the juvenile prison. (via Schoolgirls Controlled by Loverboys: Math Class in the Morning, Turning Tricks at Lunchtime – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International). 

Strange story

Rich countries. Advanced societies. Educated families. And the daughters turn to prostitution. Then sent to India for therapeutic projects. There is something missing in this story. A very vital element. 

What is the therapy? Was it looking after ‘poor’ Indian orphans, who were ‘worse’ off than these girls? Was living in a different society – a vastly different society that was the therapy? I am not sure I like this at all! 

Mother Teresa (Cartoon by John Spooner @ http://www.chrysalis.com.au)

 

The last time we had such cases in India, we ended up with Australians pedophiles. 

The do-good industry 

An Australian do-gooder was arrested for sexually assaulting children of an orphanage in Puri.  

Sometime back, two other orphanage administrators, and alleged pedophiles, Duncan Grant and Allan John Waters were convicted (their conviction is now under appeal-review). In a television channel interview, it was alleged that Margaret Thatcher, senile but yet powerful, was behind the legal challenge mounted to acquit these two British peadophiles – oops alleged peadophiles.  

Further back, Wilhelm and Lile Marti, a Swiss couple, again in the do-good industry, were granted bail in a paedophilia case. After bail, they promptly fled India.  

Do we really need these do-gooders? 

Mother Teresa, another do-gooder raised hundreds of crores in the name of Kolkatta’s poor. A few hundreds of the Kolkatta’s poor benefited from that money. But many missionaries rode on the backs of these poor Kolkattans, raising even more money. The PR machine of the Vatican has done a great job on this scam. Even if India can’t take care of its poor, we don’t need these do-gooders!  

Away!! Begone!  

Should we say, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan!!’

And let slip the dogs of war!

Did Western societies implement anti-marriage and anti-sex theories of Western intellectuals, like Plato, Malthus?

Augustus Caesar.

Anti-marriage bias

Europe and the USA have the largest number of prostitutes. An estimated 35-45 lakhs (3.5m-4.5m) prostitutes, of the estimated 200-250 lakhs (20m-25m) prostitutes in the world live and work in the EU & USA. This may be related to a deep-seated antipathy in the West towards marriage – misogamy.

In ancient Rome, to overcome ‘this anti-marriage attitude, Augustus Caesar introduced, uxorium – a tax on celibacy and childlessness. He passed laws Julia et Papia Poppaea, that reduced rights and inheritances of the unmarried and allowed girls to be married at the age of 12.

Even before the Bible and Eve, the West (and Desert Bloc) targeted marriage, wives and women for blame.

Lucretius, a famed Roman author, preferred  marriage as a lesser evil to ‘cure’ passion and …

St.Jerome, in 393 AD, wrote Against Jovinian,  an important Vatican tract against marriage, that influenced the Church and Europe for the next 1500 years. Roman synod under Pope Siricius, promptly declared Jovinian as a heretic. Emperor Honorius had Jovinan whipped and banished from Rome – exiled to a small island of Boas, off Dalmatia. St.Augustine thought that “thanks to pagan fecundity there are already enough souls to fill heaven, Augustine counseled all men to refrain from the obsolete Old Testament command to increase and multiply”

The first Christian Emperor, Constantine, at Vatican’s behest, encouraged celibacy by “repealing the Augustan marital legislation that imposed penalties on the unmarried … he even extended the power of making wills to minors who wished to become celibate.”

After his conversion to Christianity.

Misogamy – from medieval to modern

It took the combined weight of French authors like Voltaire, Diderot and Helvetius to make marriage acceptable in France. Added to this, were the arguments by Montesquieu, that Catholic France suffered due to celibacy, in comparison to Protestant Britain. France in 1920, re-introduced an anti-celibacy surtax to stem decline in French population. And Italy followed soon after in 1926.

Misogamy is so deeply ingrained that one writer extends this “symptom of an almost unconscious persistence of misogamy in France” even to translations of literary works. In Europe’s best “long-standing traditions of misogyny and misogamy.”

Does this trend persist?

Early Bruce Springsteen.

In modern era

Bruce Springsteen’s The River, was an interesting record – released before Born in the USA. The title song, The River, was about the disappointments of marrying early, with a union job, and then finding himself at a dead-end.

This song represents marriage as a black-box supposed to deliver – but rarely does. Entitlement thinking – Medicare, Welfare checks, Unemployment benefits, etc. How the State gets all this for me is the State’s problem! Too bad, if the State has to annihilate the Native Americans, the Australian aborigines, or the Africans!

Like Neil Young sings about the producer who wants a writer who is alone and hungry! The ‘economy’ needs people who have “drifted far from home … hungry … alone” – (from Neil Young’s album containing, Crime in the City).

Roald Dahl’s classic-into-a-movie,  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is another revealing tale. Most reviews confirm that the movie is ‘faithful’ to the book – not that it matters, or is actually possible.  I have on good authority on the matter of “plot and structure, the new film sticks very close to the book.” Another reviewer says,

Like Dahl’s book, the film stresses the importance of family over personal ambition, love over selfish desire. The plot, too, remains largely as Dahl left it: five golden tickets hidden in chocolate bars.

Pro-family at first glance, it is a deeply sick tale. Of how a rich man, Willy Wonka, finally gets happiness, family, reunion with his father and someone to take care of his factory and wealth. The secret of his wealth – don’t have a family.  What do the poor guys, like Charlie Bucket (rhymes with Leaking Bucket) get? A hovel, unemployment, barely enough to eat, discrimination, austerity. You got to be stupid to be be poor or to believe in a family. Good guys finish last.

Well said, Mr.Dahl.

The story is constructed well. To the smart guys, the message is clear. Stay away from family, parents, responsibilities. You can be like Willy Wonka. You get the wealth, you will anyway get everything else also. To the poor and ‘stupid’, like Charlie Bucket, the message is seemingly “A Family is Great Thing, Isn’t It!”

Though 60% of the Western adult population is married, at least 30% are on thin ice!

Well done, Mr.Dahl!

Let us do the numbers!

Do numbers bear out this narrative of the West.

Measuring simple marital status of the broad population may give a crude confirmation of this social bias. At any point, 35%-45% of the adult population in the US and UK, for whom data is available, are unmarried. That is 1000% more than India’s unmarried population. How will it affect women and children when projections show that “the population of unmarried women will soon surpass the number of married women”.

Strangely, there are no cross-country, comparative reports on marriage and prostitution. The modern West, which seeks to measure every aspect of life (they call it econometrics) especially if it involves the Third World, has done no such study on prostitution and marriage.

Global overview – on-off ‘tolerance’ for prostitution

Ex-President of the USA, George Bush estimated that “800,000 to 900,000 people are bought, sold or forced across borders” for prostitution. A study across the world, further estimated that “the number of prostitutes in the world was around 40 million.” This seems to be very high estimate – when analysed by major countries. A more likely number seems to be 200-250 lakhs prostitutes across the world. EU (25 lakhs -30 lakhs), USA (14 lakhs-20 lakhs).

In the USA, of these, a report  estimates some “300 thousand to 600 thousand of 2 million prostitutes in the USA are children and teenagers under 18. Most of them are under the class of street prostitutes.” Some older reports from the 1980’s give a lower figure of 1 million prostitutes in USA.

These reports estimate Indian prostitute population at 2-3 million – a little more than the estimated US population of prostitutes. An overview of human trafficking summarizes

The ILO estimates in a 2005 report that trafficking generates 32 billion US dollars in turnover annually. The International Labour Organisation’s 2005  Global Report on forced labour estimates that each year 2.45 million persons are trafficked for forced labour worldwide.

A significant part of these trafficked people are female-teenagers and women for purposes of prostitution. A Europol (European Police organization) report traces traffic patterns.

In the 1970s, trafficked women came mainly from South East Asia. In the 1980s, the second and third ‘waves’ of women came from Africa and Latin America. The latest traffic, the ‘fourth wave’, are females from Central and Eastern Europe. The escalation of this crime within the EU can be linked to the enormous profits that can be made by the traffickers, pimps and bar and club owners who supply and cater for the demand in purchased sex that exists in Europe.

Trafficking in human beings is considered to be the fastest growing criminal business in the world, generating massive profits for international criminal organisations. 120,000 women and children are trafficked through the Balkans alone. The US TIP Report 2001 reported on evidence that had surfaced implicating the French embassy in Sofia in selling an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 visas to Bulgarian prostitutes. (Extracts from Europol Report TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN FOR SEXUAL EXPLOITATION IN THE EU: THE INVOLVEMENT OF WESTERN BALKANS ORGANISED CRIME 2006 Public version).

The Europol report emphasizes the role of ‘immigrant’ and illegal aliens as ‘prostitutes’ from countries facing political unrest, civil conflict and war. Yet, another report points out how “the influx of peace-keepers and other international personnel may lead to increased trafficking of women and girls for prostitution”.

Prostitution. Prevalent and pervasive.

The heart of the market

In these movement patterns, a significant destination is Europe, which possibly has the highest prostitutes-to-populations ratio – along with the USA. A news report estimates, that “every day about 1.5 million Spaniards and foreigners pay for sex”. In the middle of an acute problem,

Spain has been dubbed the “brothel of Europe,” with up to 500,000 women working as prostitutes. Every day, 1.5 million men buy sex in Spain, said Maribel Montano of the governing Socialist Party (PSOE). The trade, which is plied in places ranging from parks and flats to roadside brothels, turns over an estimated 40 billion euros (54 billion dollars) annually, almost the equivalent of Spain’s education budget.

A BBC reports estimates “prostitutes in Germany … number around 400,000” – a figure that Der Spiegel supports. When compared to other countries, “Italy’s 80,000 prostitutes are more visible than anywhere else in Europe” – close to another recent estimate and up from a 1997 estimate by New York Times of 25,000.

Netherlands, with its’ much-visited cage brothel in Amsterdam is estimated to have about 50,000, with lower estimates of 25,000-30,000. In value terms, ‘the sex industry is now a $1 billion business in the Netherlands, or 5 percent of the Dutch economy, with the industry having increased 25 percent in the last decade.’

Coming to Britain, a newspaper reports, “Prostitution in the UK is worth more than £770m a year, and the Government could raise tax revenues of £250m if it were legalised”. No estimates of prostitute-numbers were given – but it was reported that ‘there are around 10,000 women in Britain who have been trafficked here for sexual exploitation.’ Curiously, despite much debate, there is reluctance in Britain to estimate the number of prostitutes in Britain.

We do not even know for sure how many prostitutes there are working in the UK.

The consensus is about 80,000. That figure – recently used by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith in an interview about the proposed new law – comes from research done 10 years ago by Hilary Kinnell, when she was working for an organisation providing health services to sex workers.

Ms Kinnell contacted 29 projects that provided services for sex workers to ask how many prostitutes they were working with. She had 17 responses. The average number of prostitutes per project was 665. She then multiplied that figure by 120, the total number of projects on her mailing list, to get an estimation of the total number of prostitutes.

“That brought the total up to very close on 80,000, which is still being quoted,” Ms Kinnell says. “And I find that quite bizarre really. The figure was picked up by all kinds of people and quoted with great confidence but I was never myself at all confident about it. I felt it could be higher, but it also could have been lower.”

Ms Kinnell is the first to point out the possible problems with her method: the centres responding might be larger than most; some sex workers might use more than one centre, and some might not be on the radar at all.

via BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | Is the number of trafficked call girls a myth?.

A singular report estimates a number of 80,000. Another US State Department study, quoted in Wikipedia, estimated this number at 1,00,000.

In 2004 the number of prostitutes in the UK was officially estimated at 80,000 but the real figure has increased significantly since then and is now believed to be over 100,000. There are an estimated 30,000 street prostitutes in Britain.

via The sordid society – Telegraph.

Though lesser than Spain and Germany, some “80,000 people visit prostitutes in Belgium each day, according to an official government estimate”. The same report indicates that “two-thirds of Belgium’s prostitutes were brought in illegally by pimps from eastern European countries such as Russia.” It then underestimates how “Belgium’s estimated 10,000 prostitutes” handle 80,000 customers a day – which seems improbable.

France within Europe is seemingly, an exception. France has one of the lowest prostitutes-to-population ratio. With just about “15,000 male and female prostitutes in France, with 7,000 in Paris alone.” Another report places a figure of upto 30,000. These lower figures are contradicted by estimates from a recent book by a French student-part-time prostitute who claims that “nearly 40,000 students turn to prostitution simply to make ends meet” in France. Der Spiegel (Germany) ran a similar story sometime back tracing how this form of recruitment or voluntary economic activity starts.

Similar reports from Britain are being discouraged as it might affect the ‘education business’ – especially from India, the largest market for UK universities.

The number of university students who know someone who has worked in the sex industry to fund their studies has gone up from “3% to 25% in 10 years”.

A study by Doctor Ron Roberts of Kingston University on students’ relationship with the sex industry also found 11% would consider escort work.

“Sexual imagery is everywhere. The middle classes are now kind of entering sex work and seeing it as a viable career path. The whole moral climate has altered substantially,” he said.

Dr Roberts said his findings were “worrying”. He added that it had been very difficult to conduct the research because universities actively discouraged research into students working in the sex industry.

He said one former employer had reacted badly to a previous study he carried out on the subject as it had “hit international press in India which was a big market for the university”.

via BBC News – Students working in sex trade increases over 10 years.

For smaller countries, loose estimates of “more than 8,000 prostitutes may be active in Finland” float around. For Switzerland, reports are that “around 14,000 prostitutes worked in Switzerland in 2005, the majority of whom were immigrants.” In Greece, an estimated “10,000 prostitutes work the streets of Athens, a city whose districts house 500 brothels and attract more than a million people a year for sex”.

For procurers and women in Eastern Europe,

Turkey has become a magnet is that the more lucrative markets of Western Europe are protected by increasingly strict visa requirements that take weeks to work through, with only uncertain results. A young woman from Moldova can be in Istanbul in a day by paying just $10 for a month long visa at the border.

Commercial Sex – bigger than movies and music

BBC reports that “in Britain, it is estimated that some £770m ($1.2bn) is spent on prostitution every year, more than on cinemas or many other forms of entertainment.” In Switzerland, prostitution “generates an annual turnover of SFr3.2 billion ($2.65 billion).”

In some parts of EU, prostitution is recognized as another profession with a State taxation policy in place. For instance, “5%-10% of the estimated 20,000 prostitutes in the Netherlands pay taxes.” Belgium is considering “estimated 50 million euros a year.  It represents an attractive option for a country currently struggling to balance its budget deficit”. At  “€14 billion-a-year prostitution industry”, Germany is the biggest market by value, for prostitution.

Anti-sex, Anti-marriage and anti-women. (Cartoonist – Nick Anderson, Publication – Houston’s Chronicle).

In the German city of Cologne “a ‘sex tax’ brought in revenues of €828,000 in 2006, a municipality spokesperson told the news agency ddp – a significant increase over 2005, when revenues were €790,000. Although prostitution is legal in Germany, Cologne is the only city that has a specific sex tax. Each prostitute is required to pay €150 each month into the city’s coffers. However, those who only work part-time can opt to pay €6 per day worked instead.”

Cross country data is hard to come by.

What does prostitution mean

Prostitution, as these figures show, takes care of a number of things. Unemployment for one. Every prostitute, creates jobs for at least one more person (more pimps and brothels, more medical services, increased security, cosmetics, business, etc.). For another, the revenue receipts that Governments seem to be getting.

A general European view was that “all women were thought to use sex for personal gain, the prostitute was understood, in the words of Ruth Karras, as ‘simply the market-oriented version of a more general phenomenon”. There is one reality that feminists believe, which needs to be isolated and accepted, is that “not all women engaged in transactional sex work fall within the victim category.”

I wonder, is prostitution is a subliminal response to the emotional and social wasteland of a society which works hard to limit societal growth and families from happening. If men rape, do women prostitute? Is prostitution, a form of gender-revenge by women against men? For limiting the role of women in society?

The number of prostitutes in Europe and the USA, the covert encouragement of pornography are part of Western pattern of showing themselves as champions of ‘freedom’ and ‘individual’ choice. This narrative hides a systemic bias against marriage and cynical on-off ‘tolerance’ towards prostitution.

Maybe even a political motive!

A societal bias towards prostitution

A recent ‘sting’ report about prostitution gave an interesting insight into sex services offered.

Within minutes, smiling Carla walked in to the room in pink lingerie and­­ introduced herself as “Bea”. She then recited a price list, “£30 for hand relief, £40 for oral sex with a condom followed by sex and £70 for oral sex without a condom followed by full sex with a condom”. (via Tory MP Mike Weatherley’s wife working as a prostitute – mirror.co.uk).

What happens to people if they don’t get ‘hand-relief’!

If 67% of European youth is single, needs hand relief, one can only imagine how that pent up frustration can be released through war, rape, enslavement, butchery, crime, etc.

As Shakespeare put it, “Cry ‘Havoc’! And let slip the dogs of war.”

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Boozed British journalism cant see straight

Why compare Japan with Lat-Am and Zimbabwe? Why not with USA, China and Germany which is more like in Japanese class! (Cartoonist - Clay Bennett, from Clay Bennett's Editorial Cartoons; courtesy - cartoonistgroup.com.). Click for larger image.

An Indian problem

Now one of the problems of India, having English as an important language, is the amount of swill, garbage and propaganda that we are subjected to.

In spite of being less than anybody, British media can be pretty biased.

One example was a post by Ian Campbell on Japan’s economic problems. He says,

Japan has … has the worst debt to GDP ratio among major economies … But the interest yield on Japanese government bonds is … not much more than 1 per cent, so the debt is not yet so problematic – and might not seem an obstacle to still more spending. … In just five years, even assuming the economy grows, debt might climb to 230 per cent of GDP …  the hideously large debt would finally drive the fiscal deficit far higher and become intolerable.

Japan’s only route then would be drastic fiscal reform or, more probably, huge resort to the printing press, as Latin America did in the old days and Zimbabwe in more recent times. (via Nokia’s billion-dollar man).

British media needs to talk less about other economies - and look at problems in their own backyard. (Cartoon By Brian Adcock, The Scotland - 1/20/2008 12.00.00 AM Cartoon courtesy - politicalcartoons.com; ©Copyright 2008 Brian Adcock - All Rights Reserved.). Click for larger image

Sad Brits …

Campbell, a British journalist, compares Japan with Latin American and African Governments who have printed a lot of money.

But surely he knows that Western Governments – under the leadership of Ben Bernanke printed much more than Africa and Lat-Am could and did! Why is Campbell not talking of British, European and American printing presses?

Is there a racial smell and smear somewhere? Did I hear him say ‘These irresponsible Blacks, Latinas, Browns, Yellows …’

Japan’s problems

Now Japan’s problems are minor – because they have solid, well run, high tech companies, whose products are in demand all over the world.

Off their peaks, these Japanese firms still have  mean clout in business world. Japanese interest rates being so low will not change Governmental economics by much. So, why compare Japan with Latin America or Zimbabwe?

Of course, you cannot compare Japan to Spain – where prostitution is a national industry.  Or Ireland, or Greece, which have lived on handouts for the last 100 years.

Maybe you should look at British debt my dear sir!

Wishful thinking?

Is it wishful thinking Mr.Campbell? Balanced your judgment is not. Or is it just plain malarkey? Methinks, it is ‘White’ noise!

Ian Campbell, who has “recently returned to the UK, where he is writing a book on rural Mexico.” could utilize his time much better writing about rural Britain, which depends on huge subsidies from a nation groaning under 500% Gross-National-Debt (GND-that is Govt.+Corporate+household).

Now British GND (no hindi puns intended) is a much-more-hideous. Than Japanese at 500%. We both know that British exports  are going nowhere!

Cartoon Text - "Austerity? But late squire ... she has been dead these fifty years." 2ndlook says - Is it not time to focus on Britain itself? Japan will do very well, without British attention. (Cartoonist Jeff Danziger; courtesy - cartoonistgroup.com.).

Let us look at British economy

First the biggest sector of British corporate sector is about digging, extracting and selling natural resources.

A historical legacy – with little value-addition. Royal Dutch Shell, BP, North Sea Oil, XStrata, Anglo American, Rio Tinto Group,  BHP Billiton, BG Group, National Grid, Scottish and Southern Energy, Centrica. That is 10 of the top 30 British companies. These companies mostly have their assets abroad – and if push comes to shove, you know these companies will go where their bread is buttered.

The second leg on which British industry stands today is cracked leg of banking and insurance – HSBC, HBOS, RBS, Lloyd’s TSB, Barclays, Standard Chartered, Aviva and Prudential. The British part of the business of these 8 financial firms is in mess. The international business is subsidizing the British business. How long do you think this will last?

The third wobbly leg is pharmaceuticals made up of two companies. Glaxo-Smithkline-and Astra Zeneca. Both are in doldrums due to competition from generic Indian companies – and may look good to beery British journalists boozed in a pub. Now these are the three legs of British economy. We know that three legged stools are always prone to topple over.

That was lesson No.1 for you Campbell.

Is this how British journalism lifts its spirits? (By Paresh Nath, The Khaleej Times, UAE - 5/19/2010 12.00.00 AM)

Lallu has a few things to say here

Lesson No.2 is what our colourful former Railway Minister said, “इस हमाम में सब नंगे हैं” (meaning “everyone in this bathhouse is naked”).

No offense to colour black, but then black pots must not call yellow kettles names.

It is plain bad journalism!

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